Something Other Than the Silence
by detective-sweetheart
Summary: He calls the first time and hangs up on the second ring. The second time, he hangs up on the first. The third time, someone answers and says hello, but he does not speak.


**A/N: Apparently, my muse is now once again stuck on older episodes, so...bear with me, if you will. I own nothing. This fic comes from the beginning scene in the episode 'Fat', where Elliot is told that his penance is to call his wife. As always, I own nothing. **

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He calls the first time and hangs up on the second ring.

And the second time, he hangs up on the first ring.

The third time, someone picks up and actually says 'Hello?', but he suddenly can't speak.

So they hang up.

It hits him vaguely that caller ID is something that his mother-in-law has, and so he waits, for the inevitable return call that he knows will come somewhere along the line.

But it is not the house phone that rings. It is his cell phone.

He listens to the ringtone and realizes that the last time he had the kids, one of them must have changed it, because usually, it's set on one of those generic ones. But now it is one of those ones that sound like some New Age instrumental or whatever, and he knows that Kathleen is probably the one who changed it, just because she thought this one sounded cool.

When he picks up the phone, it says 'Kit'.

He doesn't know when he decided that it was a nickname for 'Katherine', but somehow it fits and there is no one else in the world but her that knows he decided on this back during their senior year of high school. The last time she called his cell phone, Olivia saw the caller ID and gave him a questioning look, but he didn't say anything, because it was one of those things that he didn't want to share with her.

It still is.

When the cell phone stops ringing, he calls himself an idiot for not flipping it open and answering it. And at the same time, he wonders if it will ring again.

He jumps when the house phone starts going off, startled enough that he is frozen in place.

And when the answering machine picks up, there are two voices, his first, and then hers, breaking in, and suddenly, there is hers alone.

"I know you're there, Elliot," she says, and he wonders if it is really amusement that he hears in her voice, or if it's wishful thinking. "Mom says you've called three times in the last five minutes."

He looks at the clock. It has only been ten minutes since the last call he made, but he isn't about to argue the issue.

"I'm going to keep calling until you pick up the phone," she continues. "Don't think I won't."

A beep cuts her off. Two minutes pass, and the phone starts ringing again. This time he picks up.

"You aren't as invisible as you think you are," she says, by way of greeting. "Did you need something?"

For a moment, he is almost willing to believe that she will make the drive from the other side of Queens. But things are so complicated between the two of them right now that at the same time, he doesn't think she will. What he needs is all the lights on and two different radios playing upstairs at the same time the television is on downstairs, and the water's running in the kitchen sink because the two of them are doing the dishes.

But that's not going to happen anytime soon.

"Just needed to hear something other than silence," he says, finally, and waits, though for what he is waiting, he is not sure. He wonders for a moment if she's going to hang up on him because of this, but she doesn't, and in the back of his mind, he can almost see her frowning.

"Are you all right?" she asks, in that way that tells him she knows that things are this close to falling apart again, but she isn't going to push unless he wants to say something.

"No," he says, remembering, of all people, Rebecca Hendrix and her comments about how bottling it in isn't going to help anything. "I don't think I am."

The only reason he called in the first place was because he had been told to, as penance, as some kind of punishment, but the truth is, hearing her voice is no punishment. Two years since his last confession, and this is all he has been told to do. Call your wife, said the priest behind the window, before he had the chance to leave.

He has been putting it off for one week, one day, twelve hours, and a few minutes that he lost track of. And he thinks it's funny that he counted down.

And on the other side of the line, she knows better than to ask. "You could have said something the last time you called," she says finally, quietly. "It's not a crime to call over here."

He laughs, then, and the sound echoes, because there is no one else there.

"We haven't had a civil conversation in over a year, I should think that would qualify," he says, and then, "I don't want that to happen this time, Kit, so if you don't want to talk to me, just tell me now."

The nickname slips without a second thought.

There is dead silence on the other side of the line.

It is enough to make him think that maybe, she hung up on him in such a way that he wouldn't be able to hear it, because in high school, when he pissed her off, she'd do that.

And then he hears the sound of her breathing, and realizes the silence this time was because he could not hear his own.

"If I didn't want to talk to you," she says, "I wouldn't have called."

There is such simple logic in this remark that he is tempted to believe that maybe, this time it will be different.

And it is this that makes him close his eyes and think of a time before this, where they didn't have to talk their issues out over the phone, because it was either in your face or nothing at all, because neither one of them was going to back down.

He wonders if this is what made him fall for her in the first place.

"Are you going to talk to me, or not?"

Her voice breaks into his thoughts, and he opens his eyes, and blinks. "I don't know what to tell you," he says, and it is this that serves as some kind of floodgate. He goes on before she can say anything else.

"I really don't know what to tell you," he says, again, and then, "I hate having to do this over the phone, and I hate the fact that all the lights in the house are off, and I'm the only one here to go through and turn them on. I hate that it's so damn quiet here, and I wish I wasn't so much of a jerk that you thought you had to leave."

What he does not know is that in the future, there will be something that pushes him across the bridge again after he has made the official move into Manhattan. What he does not know is that months from now, he will be home again. He does, however, know that if he does not get this all out now, there will be no getting it out at all.

"I don't know what I'm doing here, and I don't know why I can't ever seem to let it go, but I do know that I've got this packet of papers sitting here on this table, and they're the one thing telling me that it's gone too far, and you know something else? I'm not the guy you walked out on. Or at least, I'd like to think that I'm not, because believe it or not, I'm actually getting some kind of help."

He stops, then, if only to breathe, and because he does, she speaks.

"This isn't what I wanted."

He nearly drops the phone.

"Then why did you do it?"

"Because I didn't see any other way to go about it, that's why."

If he could see her, then he would see that her eyes are closed as she speaks, that her hands are shaking and that she is still wearing the class ring he gave her at the end of their senior year, when they realized that whether or not they liked it, they were stuck with each other.

She knows that it wasn't the love at first sight thing that happened for them, but at the same time knows that she wouldn't have had it any other way.

_Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been two years since my last confession. _

She doesn't realize that she has spoken the words aloud until he speaks.

"You aren't the only one."

It has been two years for the both of them. Two years since they last sat in front of a priest, separately, to confess those things which they had done wrong, and two years since things started going south, and two years since he walked into the house to find a note on the kitchen table.

A lot can change in two years and both of them know it. But what they have not yet completely figured out is that sometimes, fate changes plans at the last minute.

"I was supposed to call you," she admits. "For penance. Or so I was told."

She knows exactly what she was told, but doesn't want to make it sound like she is only talking to him for this reason.

He laughs, again, but softly this time. "I got told the same thing."

There is silence, after that. But it is almost as if neither of them notice it, because each of them can hear the other breathing on the opposite side of the line, and all the lights are on where she is, and off where he is, and suddenly, it doesn't matter anymore.

The point of this so-called penance, because it isn't really a punishment and both of them know it, was, inadvertently, to make them talk, and that is what they have done.

Whether or not it is truly over between them, now, neither one of them knows, because of this.

"It's late," he says, finally, after a moment. "I should let you go."

There is double meaning to this, and she catches it, and shakes her head.

And then she realizes that he cannot see her.

"No, don't," she says. "Stay."

What she does not know is that in a few months' time, she will be telling him the same thing, and it will be the one thing that pushes them back together, officially.

When she gets up and starts to turn off the lights, he is still there.

When he gets up and makes the ascent up the stairs in the darkness, he is comforted by the sound of her breathing and the knowledge that there is finally something other than the silence.


End file.
